Disturbing Comicbook Moments: Jack Chick's Lisa

[espanolbot]

More horrifying than Mignola! More messed up than Junji Ito! More Perverse than a Mark Millar deconstructionist superhero comic! More lacking in its basic understanding of medical law than that one Veronica Mars episode!

Although I'm roughly a day late for Halloween, I will post possibly one of the most horrible comics that I've ever read. A comic so terribad that Jack Chick, its creator had to withdraw it due to the backlash.

Bear in mind, Chick is the guy who made a comic which said that playing Dungeons and Dragons leads to devil worship and suicide (though to be fair that it was a common thing at the time)...


Before we begin though, a brief warning: This comic deals with child abuse by a parent and his friends, and in no way am I making light of that. I do, however, find the lesson that they were trying to peddle to be so... warped and baffling that I can't see how this THING got made at all, let along lasted long enough to be recalled.







Urgh. Ever character in this damn thing is just... URGH. That doctor would be SO facing jailtime, for one thing.

Comments

[victory_or_death]

Whenever I see this posted, I always have to fight the urge to vomit. Jack Chick = Westboro Baptist Church of the 70s/80s.

The posting of this comic is ironic considering Saga was posted just below it with Sophie & Lying Cat...

[filthysize]

Yeah, people who only know about Jack Chick by reputation and never actually read his stuff can sometimes have the wrong impression about it, thinking it's all silly stuff like the D&D one and just your usual bible-thumping. Most people really don't know how perverse some of his stuff can get, with incredibly backwards morals that teeters on the verge of self-parody. This is a prime example: a feel good story about a child rapist being forgiven without having to be punished for any of his crimes, and Chick thought this was absolutely the morally correct thing.

There's another one that I like to use to illustrate just how far gone these tracts are: the one where a plane crashes and the passengers die. God sends a couple of kindly Christian missionaries who spent 50 years saving people in Africa in the name of Jesus to hell, because they've never personally converted any of them to Christianity. Meanwhile, a convicted murderer sitting next to them gets into heaven because he converted his cellmate. The message of the comic is literally: don't be a good person, because Jesus did all the good work already by dying on the cross. All that matters for humans to do is promoting Christianity.

[selke]

That man is sickening.

[cyberghostface]

The reveal at the end is like something out of a horror comic.

Also apparently this is one of the few (if not only) Chick comic that he's taken off his website.

[mortimerwclankitybritches]

As utterly disgusting and enraging this comic is, it really needs to be seen along with other "classic" chick tracts on how

- all non fundamentalist, biblical-literalist, protestant (but only a very specific sort of protestant) christians....so basically all those who dont utterly submit to Chick's personal dogma
- all fundamentalist, biblical-literalist, protestant (but only a very specific sort of protestant) christians who fail to say the literal "magic words" before they die
- all of the above "super fundies" who still try to engage in charitable works and helping others
- all LGBT people
- anyone who believes in the slightest bit of science
- anyone who enjoys popular culture, music, fiction, games, holidays, etc

are all without the slightest hyperbole, going to burn in hell forever while people like the "hero" of this tract (and yes, the child rapist in this tract is meant to be the hero because he decided to accept Chick's dogma in the end) is the most wonderful and holy man imaginable destined to go to heaven, in order to truly see what kind of a repulsive scumbag mr chick is.

Honestly, the nightmarishly evil and depraved abomination Chick's god is shown to be in these tracts puts lovecraft to shame in terms of the most repulsive deity ever concieved by mortal minds

[mortimerwclankitybritches]

There's another one that I like to use to illustrate just how far gone these tracts are: the one where a plane crashes and the passengers die. God sends a couple of kindly Christian missionaries who spent 50 years saving people in Africa in the name of Jesus to hell, because they've never personally converted any of them to Christianity. Meanwhile, a convicted murderer sitting next to them gets into heaven because he converted his cellmate. The message of the comic is literally: don't be a good person, because Jesus did all the good work already by dying on the cross. All that matters for humans to do is promoting Christianity.

Selflessness, compassion, heroism, charity, and general alturistic ideals as taught/heavily encouraged by Jesus are despised above all by Chick and his breed of fundie, since doing what jesus actually told them is far too dificult and thankless, and most importantly it does not cater to their utter narcisistic need to control others.

Its far more gratifying for them to preach that the entire world aside from them and those who submit to their insane, constantly changing, and utterly contradictory dogma will burn in eternal torture for the crime of not bowing down to them and their god.

Seriously, theyre like the evil cultists in crappy horror movies, but even less likeable.

[superfangirl1]

There is so many sick wrong it this comic that I'm just speechless and appal.

[darkblade]

I'm going to regret it but I have to ask. What is the other worst comic you mention in the cut text?

[cypherfdp]

[avantre]

Mind bondage spell? That's just ridiculous.

... (There's no way she's high enough level to cast that).

[benuben]

Since I don't have annythign interesting to say about this myself, I'll quote what someone else said about this the first time it was posted.

"Can even the most vile and contemptible person be saved? Can the worst sins truly be forgiven? And what does that mean to the forgiver?

These are excellent questions that Chick does not begin to answer.

The moral universe described herein is vile. But then, real life is vile too. If there's one thing I respect about Chick, it's the way that he connects with the most abused and traumatized sections of the populace (and it's clear here that the parents are perpetuating abuse inflicted upon them as children).

If there's one thing I hate, it's the way he throws an easy answer in their face and runs away.

Still, you gotta give him respect for asking the tough questions. What is the right answer here? Once the artist has created this situation, what do they do?"

[espanolbot]

Avatar Press' Caligula comic. It was just an excuse to have horrible stuff happen over and over with none of the redeeming qualities that even Crossed has.

It's just a vile comic, and one of the few I deliberately sent back as soon as I'd read it. For one thing, it's one of those comics that says that the reason why terrible people do terrible things is because they are literally possessed by a demon. Which would have been fair enough, but then it blindsides you with characters being profoundly anti-semitic due to Caligula's demon hating Jewish people 'cause of Jesus.

The other reason is that it has a demonic horse that rapes people. Repeatedly. Including the main character. Which is something that even the demonically possessed horse in Berserk wasn't able to go through with, main due to Guts chopping it's head off.

[icon_uk]

And Catholics, we're pretty much specifically damned for, amongst other things, arranging the assassination of Lincoln... and Kennedy, oh and causing the Holocaust too.

[erastoinen]

Can't post this without the music video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=092DUlx2hX0

[icon_uk]

Actually, I don't give him much respect for that, because he's not asking anything new.

Asking the tough questions is something moral philosophers of every flavour (religious and otherwise) have been doing it for millennia. He's more or less aping them in that regards, there's no new insight in the question here, it's just a staging post for his singularly vile worldview.

[mrstatham]

That sounds pretty fucking abominable and sounds like a distortion of the pretty infamous film (with an oddly all-star cast), which, for all the ridiculous excess it had to show, presented it as being down to Caligula's own, very human penchant for complete and utter excess.

[lieut_kettch]

Don't forget that Catholics are actually worshiping a trinity of Egyptian gods, and that the "IHS" seen on many of the church's imagery stand's for "Isis, Horus, and Set."

[lieut_kettch]

That doctor should've gone to jail (or at least had his license stripped) for failing to report a confirmed case of sexual abuse.

[mortimerwclankitybritches]

Actually I must respectfully disagree. Chick did what many talentless hacks have done and used child molestation as nothing but a plot convenience which could (and has been in many other of his works) easily have been replaced by another crime.

The intention of this tract, as with many of his other tracts was to portray pre-fundie brainwashed characters as evil and degenerate, which made child molestation an obvious choice to exploit. Thus when the molester accepted chick's far right fundamentalism he was instantly a saint able to "redeem" his family.

All the questions you suggested may well be read into it, but are entirely incidental to Chick and almost certainly unintentional on his part, since his sole definition of a "good person" is "someone who utterly submits to my dogma"

[mortimerwclankitybritches]

you missed out communism, the ku klux klan, the new world order, the future genocide of christians, drugs, anti semitism (the "bad" kind of course, the jews are damned to an eternity in hell to be sure its just that according to Chick Jesus wants to smite them personally), being the whore of babylon, islam... ok i think thats everything now

and yet despite all this meaning that if true, the roman catholic church is literally more powerful than super saiyan yellow lantern cthulhu on bathsalts, they are eternally foiled by one bitter and aged fundie cartoonist

[mortimerwclankitybritches]

Wow...worse than crossed? I thought that was pretty much the solid unbreakable bottom of the barrel in terms of horrible (both in the visceral sense and the "this is unreadable and annoying horseshit" sense) comics. Im actually tempted to seek it out now just to see how it compares.

[darkblade]

...wow...that does sound even worse. If only because it had to go through editors. Someone had to look at that and say "Yes, we can print this."

As opposed to Chick who only really answers to himself and his deranged interpretation of God.

[icon_uk]

So that would mean Isis was really a nun?

[icon_uk]

I missed them out, but then, I don't like to boast.

[cainofdreaming]

Where'd he get Horus and Set? I mean, Isis and Mithras I could understand but I don't think Horus and Set worship ever got that big a foothold in Rome.

[espanolbot]

Crossed redeemed itself in some respects because it still had Ennis' knack for realistic dialogue in addition to the main characters interacting and acting like actual human beings who were trapped in a terrible situation, and who realise that in adapting to their situation they were becoming less... well, human.

It had a lot of terrible crap in it, but it wasn't a constant onslaught of horrible stuff.

No, if you want a terrible horror comic with little to no characterisation, breaks in the tsunami of horrid imagery or the idea of hope, I'd say read Warren Ellis' Black Gas. Which is basically Crossed, but without the dangled hope that the characters might somehow outlast the infected.

[espanolbot]

Avatar Press is an imprint that specialises in creator owned books that seem to pander to the extreme violence/sex crowd. Not all of the books are awful (Dan the Unharmable is okay if gratuitous, and the werewolf book looks interesting) but they tend to be REALLY devisive.

Alan Moore's book about Lovecraft which attempted to translate Lovecraft's horror for a modern audience being one such example of a book that has some merits, but is let down by the execution.

[mishalak]

He may be asking a hard question, but he does not have the courage to actually think about it or come up with a satisfying answer for anyone other than himself. He just inserts the same easy answer that he has for all problems in all of his tracts. It is a non-sequitur rather like, "Where do non-periodic comets come from?" Answer, "A wizard did it."

[lieut_kettch]

From where Chick pulls out most of his ideas: his ass. The "H" in "IHS" isn't even the Roman "H" but the Greek "eta" since "IHS" represents the first 3 letters of Jesus' name in the Greek alphabet.

[lieut_kettch]

Y'know, one of the things that disappointed me with the Isis' revival/reboot (as Adrianna Tomaz) was that she never recited the rhymes that activated her powers.

[lieut_kettch]

...wow...that does sound even worse. If only because it had to go through editors. Someone had to look at that and say "Yes, we can print this."

Knowing Avatar Press' target audience, it might've been more:

[jlroberson]

Have you ever read Dan Raeburn's issue of THE IMP that was dedicated to these(and in fact, even shaped like a Chick tract)? It's a pretty good study, and pretty much makes this same point: that Chick's version of Christianity would not even lead to humans acting better, because that's not the point. It's about winning souls, and through them--others' souls--winning one's own real estate in Heaven. It's the central perversity of hardcore missionary-oriented fundamentalism.

The missionary mandate with Christians is often believed to derive from Ezekiel, which is known for the visions but less so for Ezekiel being told to go into an unrighteous town and warn the people to follow God or be destroyed. His incentive is that if he does this, he will not be destroyed along with the unrighteous, as long as he tried. But if he does not, he will, even though he shares none of their sin. In other words, God is holding a gun to his head to make him do this. His incentive is not some compassion for his fellow man, but saving his own ass.

It's a very selfish, ugly viewpoint. It's not how all Christians feel, but the ones who do--there's not much that's worse.

[jlroberson]

He's God as abusive father, which is pretty much entirely how fundamentalists view their version of God. Consider all the horrible things they gladly attribute to him, things an atheist would bring up as proof that such a being could not exist and be "good," and then in a feat of cognitive dissonance call "love." They're perfectly happy to think of God as vicious and act accordingly. And to be enablers.

The CRUSADERS stuff is even worse. This one is drawn by the guy who drew those, Fred Carter. The thing is, someone reading a Chick comic might well come to the conclusion that God and Satan need souls for the same reason, but the only real difference is that Satan at least gives you some fun.

[jlroberson]

I know someone who wrote one of the CROSSED series. He considers Avatar to be fairly sick fucks. Apparently they mandate a certain amount of rape and other violence. Not uncommon--when I drew for Eros there had to be sex on at least every two pages. But Eros was designed for a specific purpose and they didn't pretend otherwise. While Avatar pretends to something better somehow. They don't ONLY put out disgusting necroporn, but...you really have to LOOK for the stuff that's not.

[jlroberson]

Actually, you will be horrified to realize that Chick tailors his tracts to the audience intended. If the main characters are in jail, that's who he intends to read it: prisoners(and some prisons have actually banned Chick tracts). And if the main character is a pedo?

You got it. Chick intended this specifically as a tract for child molesters, to reach them and convert them. It is true though he uses set plots and slots stuff in. Dan Raeburn likened the arc of his tracts to porn structure, the moment of conversion being the money shot (usually presented with copious tears, especially if it's a woman).

But consider that. He intended this tract to help bring salvation to child molesters. Not punishment. He presents the child molester as off the hook if he accepts Jesus. And look at stuff like the wife here. "Well YOU found Jesus, but look at how awful I am! I still hold your raping our child against you! Oh, help me be saved like you!"

I have to stop thinking about this tract. It makes me feel like there are worms on me.

[jlroberson]

The frightening thing is that these days, one can actually imagine hearing about a case like this in the news out of some red state.

[jlroberson]

Yes, I said to moon God. You're in position--go!

[espanolbot]

More a distortion of the historical person who the film was also based on.

[jlroberson]

Not exactly. Chick's hypothesis, cribbed from a crank named Hilsop and his book "The Two Babylons," posits that Catholicism is the newest guise of a Babylonian mystery religion originated by Nimrod (who in the Bible has exactly one bit of info about him, that he was a "mighty hunter."). Nimrod married his own mother, named Semiramis, and so this religion revolves around the symbols of a mother and child. So Isis-Horus, leading to Mary and the Baby Jesus.

I realize this is stupid. I'm just describing it.

[lieut_kettch]

Not if she had a Rod of Mind Bondage.

[benuben]

I was just quoting. Should be noted that the person actually DEFENDED Chick by saying he isn't sane.

[mrosa]

That song is hilarious; how come it's so unknown?

[panthyr]

"more powerful than super saiyan yellow lantern cthulhu on bathsalts"

You are my new hero.